


Three Chords and the Truth

by athousandwinds



Category: Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: M/M, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christopher, Conrad and a guitar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Chords and the Truth

When I was seventeen, in the way that you do when you're seventeen, I took up the guitar.

"What," said Christopher scornfully, "are you planning to serenade senoritas in the moonlight?"

"I'll be serenaded if you want to practise," said Millie, so that was that. The annoying thing about Christopher is that he likes to be superior at everything and he dislikes it when he's not. And he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, if you know what I mean.

"I wish very much," Gabriel de Witt said after a few weeks of enduring this, "that Christopher might stop practising music and start playing it."

Which I thought was a bit harsh, really, because I wasn't terribly wonderful at it myself, but no one was saying anything to me. So I went on practising laboriously and it never went very well because I had to keep stopping to check my fingers were in the right place or to glance up quickly from the strings to see which note came next and perhaps I wasn't as quick about it as I thought I was.

Christopher had the room next to mine and I suppose I must have bothered him a lot, because he came in one evening and said, "Grant, stop it."

It was usually easiest to take the path of least resistance with Christopher, so I said, "All right," and laid the guitar down on my bed.

"That's not what I meant," said Christopher. "You're holding it all wrong, to begin with."

I wanted to say, It sounds better the way I play it, which was true, but Christopher picked up the guitar and I looked at his hands, instead, because I really _did_ want to get better at it. Only Christopher had an advantage over me, in that he had longer fingers and was much more deft, like a surgeon, whereas I always fumbled and messed it up when other people were watching.

"Look at me, Grant," and I glanced at his face to say, rather crossly, that I was looking at him, thank you very much, but he caught my gaze and I couldn't think of what it was that I was going to say.

"Christopher," I said, my voice gone all funny. He broke away and said,

"Grant. You're too tense when you play, that's the trouble."

"You're too relaxed, that's yours," I said.

"At least I can get through a whole song without stopping and apologising every time I hit the wrong chord."

"At least you can tell what song I'm trying to play."

And that was all it was, really. But I'm trying to tell this story as honestly as I can and I think if I hadn't spoken then, if I hadn't said Christopher's name quite like that and broken the moment, things might have been different. But I did, and they weren't, so there it is.


End file.
